Hable con ella (2002)

Talk to Her, the 2002 film from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, took the director to new heights: the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay after Spain submitted Los lunes al sol over this brilliant film for consideration in the Best Foreign Film category. He also was nominated for Best Director.

I remember renting this one from Blockbuster the summer before I went to Spain and stopping it a half hour or so into the journey the film takes its viewers due to boredom. When I gave it another chance after being exposed to some of Almodóvar’s other films, I fell in love with this beautiful masterpiece. It’s not an easy film to watch, as the drama unfolds slowly until an unforgettable conclusion, and the film talks an unexpected, dark turn (which I won’t spoil here).

Two men, strangers, watching the play Café Müller are unaware that their lives are about to cross. Benigno (Javier Cámera) notices that Marco (Darío Grandinetti) is moved to tears by the performance. Marco is a journalist who decides to do a story on woman bullfighter Lidia (Rosario Flores), who he ends up becoming involved with. She comments she has news for him the day of an important fight where she is gored by a bull. Lidia winds up in a coma. At the hospital, he meets Benigno, who remembers him perfectly from that theatre performance.

Benigno is a nurse, also caring for a woman in a coma. Alicia is a dancer who Benigno once admired from his flat overlooking a dance studio across the street and who he became obsessed with. One day, he follows her after she drops her wallet and finds out her father is a psychiatrist. He makes an appointment and arranges to see Alicia in a shower. He doesn’t see her for a week and finds out that she had been in an accident and is a coma. He tells her father he is gay and is hired as an exclusive nurse to Alicia. Four years later, he is still caring for Alicia in the coma.

The two men strike up an odd friendship. Benigno suggests that Marco “talk to her”, Lidia, while she’s in the coma, which gives the film its name. However, all is not what it’s seem, and it’s soon discovered that despite being in a coma, Alicia is pregnant. What’s going on?

Talk to Her is the cumulation of twenty years of hard work making films for Almodóvar. The cinematography is top-notch and the visuals are stunning, and the director takes advantage of flashback storytelling to build suspense. The music also creates the ambiance of the film, and he was rightly rewarded with an Oscar for this amazing film. Even his usual actresses are left in the background. The zaniness is gone, the explicit sexcapades are gone, and what’s left is a beautiful narrative about friendship and obsession in a way that only Almodóvar could direct.

Rating: A

Almodóvar Checklist:

Chicas Almodóvar: Lola Dueñas, Carmen Machi, Loles León, Elena Anyaya, Chus Lampreave, Cameo from Cecilia Roth and Marisa Paredes
Antonio Banderas: No.
Poisoned Gazpacho: No
Madrid: Sí
Galicia: No.
Drugs: No.
Musical Sequence: Theatrical scenes, a guy singing at a party.
Men Too Gay To Function: No.
Transvestites: No.
Surreal rape scene: The rape happened off screen.
Furniture Ikea Could Never Market: Of course. Noski. Claro.
Meta Slow Camera Pan To Show How Much He Really Loves Cinema: Sí
Mirror Scene: Yes. Rearview mirror in the car even. And one with one-way mirrors superimposing an image of the two friends over each other.
Aspect of Spanish Culture Turned On Its Head: Women bullfighters.
Dress from Lady Gaga’s rejected pile: No.Catholic Church As Bad Guy: No.
Taxi: Sí.
His mother: No.
Reference to earlier film: A clock has the face of the Mujeres al borde poster. Manuela and Huma Roja from Todo sobre mi madre have a cameo.
Odd Advertisement: No, but an extremely odd entire silent black and white film within the film starring Paz Vega.